Shardhunters
Shardhunters Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The Goal
Your Heroes are searching for Bloodshards during their Hunts, which you can recruit new Heroes for. The winner of the game is the player who wins a Hunt with a team of at least 5 Heroes.
Components
- 12 x Bloodshards (tokens)
- Cardbox
- 1 x Rulebook
- 4 x Player's Rule Cards
- 27 x Hero Cards (Tavern Deck)
- 35 x Monster Cards (Monster Deck)
Game Setup
Every player gets 1 Bloodshard and draws 1 Hero from the Tavern Deck. If a player draws a Hero without a shard symbol, he has to draw again until he gets one. The Tavern Deck is then shuffled. This is where new Heroes are recruited from.
The size of the Monster Deck depends on the number of players. The small skull icons in the corners of the Monster Cards indicate the number of players to play with.
- 2 players: all Monster Cards with 2 skulls
- 3 players: all Monster Cards with 2 and 3 skulls
- 4 players: all cards from the Monster Deck
The unused Monster Cards should be put aside or into the box.
Player Turn
In Shardhunters there are two alternating phases.
During the Hunt phase, your Hero teams battle monsters to see who has won the Hunt.
Each Monster Card shows a Monster value, a Monster colour, and the Number of players (skulls) it belongs to.
During the Tavern phase you can recruit new Heroes for your team and change its composition.
Each Hero Card shows a Hero illustration, Hero name, Hero ability, and Hero type.
The Hunt
Shuffle the Monster Deck. Each player draws 7 Monster Cards, face-down, which should only be seen by that player. The remaining cards should be put aside.
Four Combats decide who is the winner of the Hunt. During each combat, you place Monster Cards from your hand face-down on the table and flip them over simultaneously, then calculate the total value of each player's cards. The player with the highest value takes all the cards played as loot. The looted cards are put face-down in front of the winning player, and cannot be played again during this Hunt.
If the value of the cards played equals, the winner is the one with the most coloured cards (i.e. not white cards).
If that is equal too, then it is a draw and every player takes his own played cards as loot.
In the course of the four Combats these numbers of Monster Cards have to be played:
- 1st Combat: 1 Monster
- 2nd Combat: 2 Monsters
- 3rd Combat: 3 Monsters
- 4th Combat: 1 Monster
At the end of the Hunt count who has looted the most Monster Cards (only the number of cards is important, not their value). The player with the most cards is the winner who gets a Bloodshard in reward! If it is a draw, then the winner is the one with the most coloured cards (i.e. not white cards). If it is a draw again, every player gets 1 Bloodshard.
This is then followed by the Tavern phase.
Coloured Monster Cards
White (undead) — Does not count as a coloured card. Has no special attributes.
Yellow (pirates) — Counts as a coloured card but has no special attributes.
Blue (rats) — If anyone plays a blue card, the winner of the Combat is the player with the lowest total Monster Card value. If the value is equal, the winner is again the player with the most coloured cards.
Red (lycanthropes) — If anyone plays a red card, the winner of the Combat is the player with the highest total Monster Card value. Red cards always overrule blue cards.
The Tavern
After the Hunt you can pay 3 Bloodshards to draw 2 cards from the top of the Tavern Deck. The Heroes are put face-up in front of you and you can choose which one to recruit. The unused cards go to the bottom of the Tavern Deck. You can recruit as many Heroes as your Bloodshards allow you.
(The order of recruiting is decided by the game's owner.)
The Team
Before the Hunt you have to pick which two Heroes from your team will be active. The abilities of the other Heroes will not be active, they only add to the headcount. The active Heroes should be stood up, the passive ones laid down face up in front of you.
The first player who wins a Hunt with a team of at least 5 Heroes wins the game.
Guide to Heroes
Ignatius, the Inquisitor — The extra card remaining in your hand gets reshuffled into the Monster Deck before the next Hunt.
Selena, the Marauder — Your white cards count as yellow only during the 3rd Combat. At the end of the Hunt, when you count your loot they will again count as white (non-coloured) cards.
Cassandra, the Fortune-Teller — After each player is dealt their cards, you have to guess the value of the top card of the Monster Deck. The card you checked is then placed back on the top of the deck.
Luther, the Plague Doctor — If the 3rd Combat is a draw, no Bloodshard is awarded.
Philippe, the Swindler — Two cards are identical if their value and colour are the same.
Regarding Hero abilities, if the card uses the term YOU or YOUR, it means it only applies to the player who has that Hero card in their team.
Some Hero abilities can globally affect the gameplay. Make sure you check every active Hero in play, to see if they affect all cards or just their player's cards. Also, take the Bloodshards immediately, whennever the condition of a Hero ability is met, even if it's in the middle of a Combat.
Alternate Rules
For more rapid gameplay, or if you are short for time, you can choose to decrease the recruitment cost of a Hero to 2 Bloodshards.
For more complex and difficult gameplay, you can choose to increase the number of active Heroes to 3 during the Hunt.
Example Heroes for this variant:
- Triton, the Pirate — If during a Combat at least 3 cards of different colours are played, you get a Bloodshard.
- Tobias, the Inventor — You have to play 4 cards in the 3rd Combat and only 1 card in every other Combat.
- Clemence, the Manhunter — The value of all YELLOW cards is reduced to 1.
- Angelo, the Monk — If you looted more than 7 cards during the Hunt, you get a Bloodshard.
Hero Draft
If you are already familiar with the Heroes, you can try an alternate way to play Shardhunters.
At the beginning of the game all players draw 6 Hero cards each from the shuffled Tavern Deck, without letting the other players see them.
Select one Hero and place it face-down in front of you, then pass the remaining cards to the player on your right. Select another Hero from the cards you received and pass on the rest. Repeat this until only 1 card is left, which goes directly back to the Tavern Deck.
The 5 Heroes you selected will form your Local Tavern Deck. At the start of the game and whenever you have 3 Bloodshards to spend you can recruit any Hero from your Local Tavern Deck. Recruit all 5 Heroes and then win a Hunt to be the winner of the game.
Solo Mode
You can also play in Solo mode, where your main goal is to defeat the Reavers. If you win a Hunt with at least 5 Heroes, you are the winner, if the Reavers do so first, you lose.
Follow the rules for 2-Player mode, but with the following changes:
- All Heroes are active for both sides (Crow has no disadvantages in this case).
- Both sides have a personal Tavern Deck: you will hire from the Heroes of Stanbul, the opponent will hire from the Reavers.
The Tavern Deck of the Reavers includes:
- Selena, the Marauder — In the 3rd Combat, all your WHITE cards count as YELLOW.
- Shena, the Damned — The value of all your BLUE cards is reduced by 1.
- Varden, the Blood Shaman — The value of all your RED cards increases by 2.
- Benedictus, the Necromancer — If during the Hunt you looted at least 3 WHITE cards of different values, you get a Bloodshard.
- Felix, the Gambler — If a Combat ends in a draw, you get a Bloodshard.
- Luther, the Plague Doctor — If you lose the 3rd Combat, you get a Bloodshard.
- Matteo, the Marksman — If you win the 4th Combat, you get a Bloodshard.
- Morgan, the Pirate Captain — For every YELLOW card you looted, you get a Bloodshard.
- Nimrod, the Hunter — If during the Hunt you looted at least one card with a value of 4, you get a Bloodshard.
- Titus, the Bold — If you win the 1st Combat, you get a Bloodshard.
All other Heroes are in you Tavern Deck.
The Reavers team plays as follows:
- Place the Reavers' monster cards face down in a pile as they are dealt out. Then play the corresponding number of cards for each round of Combat from the top.
- If the Reavers have 3 Bloodshards available, they automatically hire the top Hero from their Tavern Deck (they don't decide between 2 Heroes).
- They start with 2 random Heroes on normal difficulty level and 3 on hard.